Basic concepts of policy analysis

Lecture 4

Public policy –def.

• What the government chooses to do or not to do.

• “A set of interrelated decisions taken by a political actor or group of actors concerning the selection of goals and the means of achieving them within a specified situation where those decisions should, in principle, be within the power of those actors to achieve" (Jenkins 1978)

Types of policy (Lowi)

Coercition (costs)

Use of coercition

On individuals On large collectivities

Direct, immediate

Regulative(ex: anti-discrimination law)

Redistributive(ex:quotas; differential income taxation of women and men)

Indirect, diffuse Distributive(childcare)

Constituent(organizational and procedural

reforms for mainstreaming)

POLICY CYCLE

The policy cycle

Drawbacks and advantages of using the policy cycle heuristic

Drawbacks AdvantagesIt’s an ideal type : gives a somewhat unrealistic ideas of the policy process.

In the real world the policy making is not an ordered sequence of actions

Policy making is not always a rational problem-solving activities: can be dominated by irrationality, emotions, casuality.i

Makes the policy process more comprehensible.

Stages are logical, not empirical.

Stages help in orienting research

AGENDA SETTING• POLICY AGENDA of a government refers to the public

problems that receive attention from the government and the government is determined to act on.

• Only a limited number of public problems enter the governmental agenda: agenda setting is a process of selection among possible problems.

• PROBLEM--------------------------POLICY ISSUE (matter requiring government action)

• According to Cobb and Elder (1983) to enter the political agenda problems must a) receive widespread attention from public b) be considered requiring public action by a sizable part of the public c) be considered as an appropriate concern of some governmental unit and falling within the bounds of its competences. Further the capability of policy entrepreneurs, problem visibility, and the availability of appropriate solutions also influence the probability of inclusion of a problem in the governmental agenda.

Modes of agenda settingInitiator

Outside initiation

Non-state actor

Policy enterpreneurs outside the government manage to gain the public’s support on a problem and pressure on government to take care of it

Inside initiation

State actor Initiators are inside the government (politicians, burocrats)

Mobilization State actor +non state actors

Initiators inside the government mobilize public’s support on a problem to justify insertion in the agenda

Policy Formulation and policy sub-systems

• Formulation is the second stage of the policy process and involves the proposal of solutions to agenda issues. It regards the crafting of solutions and options to deal with the problem.

• Who are the major actors contributing to policy formulation ? (politicians, burocrats, experts, lobbies)actors in the policy-subsystem

• Who generates the policy ideas? Where do thy come from ?(policy legacies, policy diffusion, epistemic communities)

Policy formulation-Preparation: EU

• Commission involvement (legal base)• Formal and informal consultation between

national,sub-national, EU levels• Most lobbying takes place at this stage• Policy networks • Draft by the Commission : Only 20 per

cent of any proposal subject to change after this stage

Decision

• Regards the choice among policy options • Several models of the decision making process :

They are theoretical frame-works identifying the central aspects of the decision-making process , particularly with reference to :

• The decision maker and his/her cognitive abilities

• The activities of research and analysis of policy options

• The choice and the criteria used for choosing.• The three “classic” models

Decision maker

Decision maker’s Cognitive abilities

Analysis of policy options

Logic of choice

Global

rationality

unitary Aboslute

(omniscient)Global: all policy options evaluated in terms of costs and benefits

Maximization (of net benefits)

Bounded

rationality

unitary Limited (rules of thumb, habits)

Some policy options are evaluated: most familiar, the first met

Satisfaction

Incrementalism-Partisan mutual adjustment

Plural-partisan

Limited

Partial

The policy options analyzed are those differing only incrementally from the status quo (“where do we go from here?)

Consensus

• Global and limited rationality - decision as problem-solving

• Incrementalism decision making as bargaining: political process

• The best decision is the one that produce consensus (political rationality)

IMPLEMENTATION

• refers to “what happens after a bill becomes a law” (Bardach 1977 )

• or

• “translating policy into action” (Barrett 2004: 251).

• Linear view of implementation

• Implementation as a problem

centre

periphery

time

decision

Technicalexecution

Policyoutcomes

Decision

Policy Outcomes

IMPLEMENTATIONComplex political process, the more so In multi-level politieswith a high number of veto

players

?

The discovery of the implementation problem

• A. Wildawsky- R. Pressman 1973 Implementation: how great expectations in Washington are dashed in Oakland or why it is amazing that federal programs work at all….

• The research regards the failure of a federal program for job creation in an underdeveloped area : only 1/6 of the budget was in fact spent and the job created were only 68 against 3000 new jobs expected--- IMPLEMENTATION DEFICIT

• Inaugurated the ”implementation research”

Complexity of joint action

• Is the main cause of the implementation deficit.• As implementation proceeds new actors enter the process of

implementation . • The growing number of actors imply a growing number of

decisions that must be taken in order to make implementation possible (clearances).

• At every decision point a delay in implementation may occurr.• The probability of delay depends on:• The preferences regarding the policy of the actors whose

decision is required• How intense these preferences are

Implementation delay

Intensity of actor’s preferences

Direction of actor’s preferences

High Low

Positive Strongly for No delay- compliance, no bargaining needed.

Mildly for Small delay – No bargaining

Negative Strongly againstBig delay . Central aspects of the policy must be re- negotiated

Mildly against-Moderate delay Negotiation is needed but only on minor aspetcs of the policy

The potential impact of actors on the implementation process

• The more important the resources (financial, of authority ,information) controlled by the actor the bigger can be his/her impact on the implementation process.

Total implementation delay

• The total implementation delay depends :• On the number of decision points • On the number of actor involved • On the direction and intensity of their

preferences • In multi-level polities (federal states or

regional organization) the probability of delays producing themselves in the long implementation chain is very high.

POLICY TRANSFER

Policy transfer

• To Dolowitz and Marsh, policy transfer: "refer[s] to a process in which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, and institutions in one time and/or place is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, and institutions in another time and/or place" (1996,344).

• What is transferred ? : policies, but also institutions, attitudes or ideas, ideologies, and negative lessons (Dolowitz, 1998).

• Policy transfer is akin to policy diffusion but is a more specific form of it, accounting for only those cases where conscious knowledge of policy is used in policy development elsewhere.

Policy transfer and levels of government

• Policy transfer may occur between different levels of government:

• International-national • National- National• Nationalinternational • Nationalregional• Nationallocal• Regional-regional • Etc. • (Dolowitz 30 possible paths for policy transfer)

Lessons drawing (Rose 1991)

• As Rose (1991) lessons drawing occurs when a government looks for solutions to a problem , looking to what in the same nations has been done with similar problems in the past, or to what has been done elsewhere .

• Politicians tend to look abroad to see how politicians elsewhere have responded to similar problems.

• “Lesson drawing serves as a shortcut to problem solving that attempts to avoid reinventing the wheel where solutions to problems may already exist.”(Newmark 2002)

• Lessons drawing may be positive (search for a solution which worked elsewhere) or negative (avoiding a solution that proved un-effective elsewhere)

Voluntary policy transfer

• Typically, policy transfer is either voluntary or coercive (Dolowitz and Marsh, 1996).

• Voluntary transfer often occurs as a result of dissatisfaction with existing policy : when it occurs , policy makers search for existing solutions to alleviate it.

• A number of factors further facilitate voluntary policy transfer: common language, similar political cultures or ideologies of parties in government, relationships among political or bureucratic elites, the existence of think-tanks and policy entrepreneurs

Coercive policy transfer

• transfer may also be coercive, either directly or indirectly (Dolowitz and Marsh, 1996).

• Cases of direct coercive policies are policies forced on their members by institutions such as the IMF or the WB.

• Case of coercive policy transfer are the role played by the US in the drafting of the post World War II Constitutions of Japan and Federal Germany

Intermediate forms of policy tranfer

• There is a middle ground between voluntary and coercive policy transfer (Dolowitz, 1998).

• A country may adopt a policy in order to avoid falling behind other nations which have already adopted the policy.

• International institutions often pressure on nation state to adopt a certain policy

Modes of lesson drawing (Rose 1991)

Copying Adopting entirely a program already in force in another state or region

Emulation Adoption a program already in force elsewhere but adapting it to the different local circumstances .

Hybridization Combine elements of programs in force in two different places

Synthesis Combine familiar elements from programs in effect in three or more different places.

Ispiration Is not lessons drawing stricto sensu, rather policy-makers use problems and programs adopted elsewhere as an intellectual stimulus to develop new solutions